report in The Daily Star, June 27, 2018
The number of arrests and cases over drug crimes went up over the last five years but the conviction rate in such cases declined during the period with the lowest last year, says a government report.
Around 55 percent of such cases saw conviction in 2013, and the rate fell to 40 percent last year, according to the Annual Drug Report 2017 released by the Department of Narcotics Control (DNC) yesterday.
The conviction rate was 53 percent in 2014, 47.63 percent in 2015 and 44 percent in 2016.
The report said some 132,893 people were arrested in 106,546 drug-related cases last year while 47,531 arrests were made in 40,250 such cases in 2013.
Many of the criminals got acquitted due to faulty and incomplete investigation, improper presentation of cases in court, weaknesses in prosecution, lack of witnesses and “speculated corruption”, it mentioned.
The report also blamed the shortage of manpower in the DNC’s prosecution wing that has only 12 prosecutors and 37 assistant prosecutors at 25 regional headquarters to cover around 500 courts in 64 districts.
Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan unveiled the report at a programme in the capital yesterday.
Discussants underscored the need for setting up separate courts to deal with the drug-related cases as more than 50,000 such cases are pending.
The report also revealed that people with no income account for the bulk of the addicts. They are either dependent on their parents or heads of families, or manage money to buy drugs through extortion, theft or other crimes.
The DNC came up with the findings based on its survey on drug addicts treated last year in four state-run and several private rehabilitation centres across the country.
DNC officials, however, could not say anything about the number of respondents and the survey method.
According to the report, 31 percent of the addicts had no income. People of lower middle class group with monthly income between Tk 5,000 and Tk 10,000 made up the second largest group among the addicts.
The drug consumption rate is higher in adolescents and youths aged between 15 and 30, it added.
Around three-fourths of the addicts started taking drugs under influence of their friends while almost all the others became drug abusers out of curiosity, mentiond the report.
More than half of the drug users are either students or unemployed while the rest are job holders and businesspeople.
The report said Dhaka city is the biggest drug market in the country, and almost all the 32 border districts are vulnerable to drug trafficking.
Last year, the DNC and law enforcement agencies seized more than four crore yaba tablets, 401 kg of heroin, and 69,989 kg of cannabis.
Talking to reporters after the programme, the home minister said the government will put up barbed wire fences and install sensor devices along the Myanmar border mainly to stop smuggling of yaba and other illegal drugs into Bangladesh.
He further said initiatives have been taken to strengthen Border Guard Bangladesh, the coast guard and river police to check narcotics smuggling.
Speaking at the programme, the minister said Bangladesh had handed over a list of yaba-producing factories in Myanmar to the authorities of that country but they are yet to take any action.
The other speakers included Faridul Haque Khan, member of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Home Affairs; Farid Uddin Ahmed Chowdhury, Security Services Division secretary at the home ministry; Brig Gen Ali Ahmed, director general of Fire Service and Civil Defence; Asaduzzaman Mia, commissioner of Dhaka Metropolitan Police; and Jamal Uddin Ahmed, director general of the DNC.
‘DRUG PEDDLER’ KILLED
An alleged drug peddler was killed in a “shootout” with police in Baghbarabad area in Bhola Sadar upazila early yesterday.
The dead was identified as Md Jakir, 38, son of Sadek Ali.
So far, at least 161 suspected drug peddlers have been killed since the anti-narcotics drive began on May 4. Most of the dead were killed in “shootouts” involving police and Rapid Action Battalion. https://www.thedailystar.net/backpage/drug-crimes-5-years-cases-conviction-rate-down-1596001
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